


Shadows of Suspicions

by Brennah_K



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: AU, Character Study, References to Domestic Violence, References to Past Child Abuse, References to Past Molestation, Untapped Canon References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:52:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennah_K/pseuds/Brennah_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just when everyone believes that Riley Jenkins case from Reid's childhood has been resolved, a small almost throwaway comment from Spencer leaves Rossi plagued with suspicion that he can not, in good conscience, let rest, even if it means exposing a dark and ugly secret that Spencer has been keeping even from himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I - I was wrong a-about … about everything: I'm sorry." Spencer murmured in a soft tearful-horrified tone of astonishment.

"Well, it had to happen sometime, Kid." Derek answered consolingly.

The comment stayed with David, though, lingering in his thoughts the entire flight back.

It didn't sit right; didn't match up. Not really, and it wasn't the only thing that didn't match up. In truth, there had been a lot of things about the Jenkins case that didn't fit, and even more, that didn't fit about Reids' father. Matters that he'd pushed away, and perhaps worse, had badgered Reid into pushing away.

They had done it for Spencer's own good, he'd thought, at the time, but now. Now, David wasn't so certain. In the end, instead of protecting Reid from the onus of having to possibly put away his own father for molestation and murder, had they prevented him from revealing the full scope of the case to them? Thinking about some of the other small comments that Reid had made over the previous three days, he was beginning to think so. Despite their claims that Reid was losing objectivity, in the end all of the information that had come directly from Reid had panned out and been verified... more than verified. Regardless of that fact, however, they had run rough-shod over his judgment- questioning his motives and actions, even when what he'd requested had been entirely in with the BAU's standard procedure. They'd forgotten that out of any member of the BAU, Reid was the least likely to jump to conclusions.

As Reid drifted off into a restless sleep, no doubt haunted by the softly-muttered self-accusations he'd been voicing barely under his breath almost the full ride from the station to the airport, Rossi, waited several seconds before he pulled out his phone, and dialed the number he'd added to his phone just hours ago.

"Hello, Doctor, this is David Rossi, yes, Reid's associate. May I speak with Mrs. Reid, please? I have just one small question that I need to ask to wrap things up of our records. "

The Doctor paused on the other end of the line for several seconds, until David was almost certain that he was going to be refused, but eventually sighed and answered, "Given that she has been out for such an extended period, today, particularly without the benefits of her medication, and had to deal with her ... husband on top of this, I would not normally permit a late evening call such as this; however, for her sake, I do believe that it would be best if we wrapped this matter up as swiftly as possible. Please take into consideration, though, that her activities and lapse from her prescribed regimine have taken their toll, and her lucidity is tentative at best."

"Thank you, Doctor, I do understand."

Several seconds passed, before Diana Reid took the phone, "Hello."

"Hello, Ms. Reid, this is Agent David Rossi, one of your son's associate's."

"Oh, yes, I remember, the gentleman with the unfortunate mustache."

"Yes, I suppose that would be me. Mrs. Reid, I do have a small question for you to wrap up the case. Reid indicated that you had told him that Reilly Jenkins was his imaginary friend. I am sure that in retrospect, you can see how concerning that is. Can I ask why? I would have assumed that given his intelligence, you would have preferred acknowledging that Riley was a childhood friend who died young."

"Yes, I was so surprised when Will told me that there wasn't a child on the team named Reilly. Spencer always had such a brilliant mind, though, he'd never been given to indulging in fantasies...I thought that perhaps it was foretelling the talents of the extraordinary writer he might become when the stories about the imaginary friend he created for himself had such depth of character and realism. Ask him to tell you about them sometime, you would be amazed. Riley seems so lifelike, you'll see what I mean immediately. Such an incredible mind, and heart, they were always Spencer's best traits: He's such a treasure: even as a baby he understood the nuances about matters you would never expect a child his age to recognize much less differentiate implications."

"How do you mean," David questioned, an intense feeling of dread coming over him as he thought he might already know the answer.

"Oh, It's so hard to explain it. He was so young, but with such a mature mind. When we read Tristan and Isolde for the first time, I had expected to have to explain their tryst, but Spencer understood immediately that they had lain together in congress, and that they could do so without necessarily producing a child. "

"May I ask how old he was, when you read the story with him?"

"Why, barely six, I think. You don't understand what a treasure he was. That's the only reason that I went with Lou to point out Mr. Michaels. It was never about Riley. Just Spencer, Will kept saying how it could have been him, and that if I didn't show Lou the man that Will had seen with both of the boys, Mr. Michaels might still have gone after Spencer."

"Are you saying that your husband told you to go to Mr. Jenkins?"

"Yes- yes… He'd seen Mr. Michaels playing chess with Spencer during the little league game, and showed me where Mr. Michaels lived, so I could show Lou."

"I see. " David answered grimly, nodding at Derek, who was now watching him with an aghast glare. "Thank you, Mrs. Reid. You've been very helpful. "

Snapping the phone shut, David watched Spencer for several seconds, to make certain he was genuinely asleep before he dialed again.

"Hotchner," Aaron's voice sounded lighter than David expected.

"Aaron, it's David. Are you where you can talk?"

"Yes, we're outside the waiting room. J. J. is in delivery room, everything seems to be going well."

"I wish I could say the same. We've got a problem: If I'm not mistaken, this isn't over yet."

"Care to elaborate?" Aaron demanded in a soft tone, as if he realized that Reid was asleep. Perhaps he had; David hadn't withheld the fact that he thought Reid probably hadn't slept the entire time they were in Vegas.

"Our investigation cleared his father of …" Derek protested.

"Did it? Under any other circumstances, if it was anyone other than Reid's father? Would we have followed the same investigative trail? Or were we just picking up the crumbs that William Reid left for us to find?"

"Don't get into it right now," Aaron ordered, interrupting what looked like the promise of an impending argument from Derek, "Just bring Reid to the hospital. I'll have Emily take him down to the gift shop to pick out something for the baby, as a distraction, and you can bring me up to speed."


	2. Chapter 2

Aaron heard both Derek and Rossi out, shaking his head  with a mixture of irritation and understanding, hearing as many of their own issues in their explanation as Reid's issues. He understood their motivations, but couldn't overlook the fact that they had overlooked, mishandled, and flat-out undermined what seemed to be Reid's genuine attempt to investigate Riley Jenkins assault and murder - regardless of its potential cost to him.

Only too familiar with the toll that suspecting and investigating one's own father took, Aaron could not so easily dismiss Reid's investigation of his father as the unsub.  Particularly considering the full disclosure of circumstances Spencer had given during his screening interview before being assigned to the BAU, Reid's willingness to challenge the topic knowing the depth of revelations it would force, in Aaron's opinion, had to be given full credence... but it had to be managed carefully, and it's potential impact on not only Reid's health and well-being, but also his career had to be limited. This could not be allowed to destroy the young profiler.

"Okay, I will talk to Strauss, tomorrow, and see what it's going to take to keep the case open. In the meantime, I don't want Reid to have to hash through this again until we are certain we have a chance of building a case, one way or the other. Tonight, our focus is J.J, tomorrow, we get a fresh start. Derek, I assume you were planning to stay here until  J.J. delivers?" At the man's quick nod, Aaron continued, "Good, when Reid's had a chance to give J.J. his well wishes and is ready to go, could you take him to your house for the night? I don't want him surrounded by reminders of his childhood to dwell on." 

"Sure thing, Hotch. I'll even make sure he goes to bed on time, so he won't need those twenty sugars in his coffee, tomorrow." 

"Well, Good Luck with that." Aaron offered, remembering the first time he'd taken Reid into his home, after the first time he'd been injured on a case. Haley had been up and down every twenty to thirty minutes (after midnight) trying to get the young man to sleep, to no avail. Turning to his former mentor, Aaron asked, "Rossi, do you have it in you to pull an all-nighter after spending an extra three days in Vegas? I somehow doubt you passed up the tables ... and other entertainments."

Smirking, Dave shook his head,

"I'm fresh as a daisy; Reid's the only one to lose sleep this time around."  Rossi answered, not noticing Aaron's quick glance to assess Derek.

No, Reid wasn't the only one who'd lost sleep, but then Aaron hadn't expected anything else. It was one of the reasons he was sending Reid home with Derek; in trying to get Reid to get some sleep, Derek might just have a chance of forgetting Buford for a couple of hours and getting some sleep himself. He would need it - especially if Aaron's upcoming conversation with Reid went the way he was expecting it to in the morning and the younger man agreed to divulge the issues he'd shared with Aaron and Gideon during his entrance interview. Aaron wasn't a betting man, but he'd wager a year's salary against the their chances for resolving the case without triggering some of Derek's own issues. 

Regardless of the results of his talk with Strauss the next morning, though, it was something that they would need to discuss, with Reid, Derek, and possibly the whole team. He had learned a hard lesson from the incident with Elle, and again with Derek when he went to Chicago, but somehow had let himself forget after Reid had practically rescued himself from Hankel. Letting traumas like these fester only created more problems in the end. Hadn't Reid's reliance on dilaudid been enough to show that?

One more reason for he and Dave to get started as soon as possible: not having been there during Reid's interview nor the revelation of Derek's treatment by Carl Buford, Dave would have to be read-in on both and given time to assimilate the information before either of the young men came-in in the morning. He didn't want to think what kind of blow it would be for the older agent when he realized how deeply the case, and its ramifications for both young men, had been mishandled. Dave might act like an arrogant, sometimes obnoxious, old-school hard-ass at times, but one quality Aaron had never questioned about Dave was how deeply cared about and tried to protect his fellow agents, brothers in arms, and the victims they fought to save... and when they were all rolled into one... as Reid's pending revelations would soon make clear? Well, Aaron knew Rossi well enough to know that his mistakes were going to eat him at him for months to come. 

Hearing the clicking of Emily's heels and Reid's voice carrying down the hall, Aaron waved Derek and Dave back to their seats and leaned back into the couch, himself, to wait and plan. There had been something that bothered Aaron about the Elder Reid's expenses, but he hadn't pinned it down before the case had seemed to close itself, and his instincts were telling him that it was where he should start ... if he could figure out what exactly it was that was bothering him. 


	3. Chapter 3

Derek wasn't certain what kind of attitude he had been expecting to see from Spencer during the ride back to his place, but the anxious, hand-wringing imitation of a Mexican jumping bean wasn't it.

"Come on, Pretty boy, you're distracting the driver here. On a scale of one to ten, that's a 'not good'."

It was a throw away comment that he expected and intended Reid to find irresistibly flawed, but while Reid's hands stilled stiffly in his lap, the younger man offered no correction or indication that he'd even recognized that the _Sherlock_ reference was incongruous with a numbered rating scale.

"Reid, come on, Pretty boy, snap out of it and talk to me."

Even though Reid's frantic hand-wringing had stilled, the tension he was exuding would have grabbed the attention of even someone ... well even someone like Reid, who was almost hopeless at reading body language.

The noticeable silence that followed had Derek on edge.

"Reid, I'm serious. I know that I haven't been that good at listening over the past few days, and I'm sorry for that. But, I'm listening now. Something's clearly got you on edge, and I don't think it's about what happened in Vegas... " Derek paused, realizing that it might sound as if he was dismissing what happened in Vegas, and offered by way of explanation: "At least you seemed okay on the ride from the airport to the hospital."

The glance Spencer spared him was so fleeting that Derek almost didn't notice it, but in that brief instance Spencer seemed to read him, and almost visibly withdraw, murmuring, "I'm Just tired, okay?"

No, actually, it wasn't okay. Derek was certain of that, but - without bringing up the exact conversation that Hotch wanted to protect Reid from - he didn't know what to say to get Reid to open up, especially if Rossi and Reid had been right. What could he say to make up for the way he'd almost completely dismissed Reid's claims? 

"Derek, just leave it, okay?"

For a second, Derek was relieved that Reid was at least admitting there was an 'it' to be discussed.

"Sorry kid, I can't do that." Not when his friend was so clearly bothered by whatever he was thinking about.

"That's pretty hypocritical isn't it? All things considered..."

"Woah, Man," Derek protest, pulling the car to the side of the road and turned to face his friend. "You've got a right to be ticked at me, but that's outta line."

"Is it? I don't remember you being all that eager to discuss Carl Buford - even though the only reason we were invading your privacy was to KEEP You OUT of JAIL! But after we did, I don't remember us pushing for you to talk about it or not giving you the chance to even talk in the first place and dismissing you out of hand."

Hurt and anger flared in equal measure, as Derek protested. "It's not the same thing, Reid! Carl Buford..." Derek trailed off at the unshuttered expression of haunted, self-loathing, pain in Reid's eyes before the realization hit...

"No...Reid. Don't... " the unintended plea came out as an almost whimper before Derek turned his face away, not wanting to burden his friend with his anguish at the thought. 

"Don't worry, Derek. As much as we're friends, and please trust me, this hasn't changed it - at least on my side... as much as we are friends, you are the absolute last person I'd discuss this with. But, before you try to convince yourself that you misunderstood or misheard me - let me state it as clearly and delicately as possible, simply because my father was not responsible for Reilly does not mean he was innocent or that there weren't other victims 'closer to home'."

Derek didn't realize that Reid was even going to get out until the door popped open, and for the first time in the years that Derek had known the younger man, a cab was almost instantly there to pick him up... before Derek could figure out what he wanted to say.


End file.
